


The art of torture - by John Murphy

by Ghelik



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Torture, drable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: John Murphy isn't a fan of torture, but by now he's gone through the motions enough times to be able to rate it.McCreary is not as good as he thinks he is.





	The art of torture - by John Murphy

“You think you’re tough,” the man they call McCreary all but purrs, smirking like some cartoonish villain in the movies Echo likes so much, “We’ll see how tough you are once I am through with you.”

Murphy scrunches up his nose. “Man, that’s a weak ass line. I guess the delivery was menacing enough, but overall I’ll give it a three.”

McCreary narrows his eyes. “Aren’t you a funny guy.” He expects the punch and the three kicks that follow.

After the onslaught, Murphy pants for air. “Well, I’d qualify that as pretty mediocre,” he pants spitting blood on the floor. “Titus level torture.” He manages not to bite his tongue when McCreary’s boot connects with his face. “No creativity, just brute force.” One of his molars feels loose. Murphy drags himself out of the way of the next kick; it catches his shoulder, which isn't that much of an improvement. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

The door to the cell they’re keeping him in opens with a metallic groan, and a big man plows in. Dressed in pale overalls, with a big spider tattooed on his cheek, he carries a collar in his left hand and clunky rectangular box in the other.

Murphy only has eyes for the collar.

He feels himself freeze in terror. McCreary’s grin has bile raising to the back of his throat. The man comes closer, and Murphy struggles to get away, but McCreary is quicker and stronger than him. The collar snaps closed around his neck. For an agonizing heartbeat, he’s back in Ontari’s room. No, he’s hanging from the tree behind the Dropship’s half-built wall. “Not so funny now, are we?”

Murphy blinks. 

He’s in Eligius’ ship.

“Don’t think that you can buy me with cheap jewelry,” he snarks to cover up the way his heart races against his sternum.

“Oh. There’s nothing cheap about this one.” McCreary has the box in his oddly delicate hands.

The next thing Murphy knows is pain: pure, white-hot, asphyxiating pain radiating from his neck, setting every nerve in his body on fire. His skin feels too tight, his blood, too warm; his body spasms and he can’t get his lungs to work.

It ends as suddenly as it started. When his eyes deign themselves to work again, he’s prostrated on the floor at McCreary’s feet. His tongue throbs where he accidentally bit it.

“Now…”

“Ok,” Murphy manages to say, his mouth tastes like copper, the tongue feels pasty and unwilling to move. “I’ll give it a seven and a half.”

“What?”

“Your overall performance could use some work, but I guess you get bonus points for the collar.”

“Is this dude for real?” asks the guy who brought the neckband. Murphy is planning a very long and excruciating death for him.

“Don’t worry, Donny. He only needs a little encouragement.”

The second time the collar goes off, Murphy’s prepared. It’s still painful and excruciating, but his brain can process what’s happening, and if he can understand, he can keep his running commentary on until they push a gag into his mouth and shock him into oblivion.

He doesn’t lose consciousness, but his body stops responding. It lies there in a pool of sweat, piss, and blood, twitching even after they stop pressing the button. 

Murphy would stare at them, but the world’s fuzzy and his eyes don’t work correctly. He hears them leave and his whole body sags in relief.

He stares unseeing up at the ceiling, one of the fluorescent lights blinks randomly on and off. He can feel the hum of the air-filtration-system, from the motors and the electric lights in his teeth. Murphy isn’t sure for how long he stays there, trying to catch his breath, trying to get his body back under control, at least enough to drag himself out of the mess he made on the floor.

Contrary to popular belief Murphy does not enjoy being tortured, but after all the times people decided to subject him to some kind of physical or psychological torture, he knows what will break him and what won’t. McCreary’s brutality might have worked when he first came down to earth, but, by now, physical pain is like a second skin thanks to the countless little wounds he never got to tend to properly. Random aches plague him every day. Nothing like what Raven has to shoulder, of course. His are just background noise. And background noise is good. Anything that might distract him from the disappointed voices in his head. Pain is an effective distraction.

He isn’t sure for how long they leave him alone. The most effective torture rooms are windowless and stripped bare. On the grounder camp, they kept him underground. He told Bellamy it had been three days, but, the truth is, he isn’t sure, can’t be sure, because 101 for torture is disorientation.

When the Eligius men come back, McCreary isn’t with them. They’re five: three strong guys and two women. He’s wary of these two; it’s always the women who are the most creative.

They’re all clad in the pale overalls that seem the standard issue for Eligius Kru, and their skin’s marked with tattoos: crosses and tears and flowers on their arms and hands and faces. One of the women snaps her fingers, and a tiny flame appears between them, she lights a small stick between her lips. It takes Murphy a moment to understand it’s a cigarette. He had never seen one of those in real life before.

A man grabs Murphy by the back of the head and slams his knee into his gut. The others laugh, but the young delinquent can’t take his eyes off the glowing tip of the cigarette. It stinks, but it beats like a heart.

His attackers don’t even take the gag out of his mouth before starting with a pretty unimaginative beating. And, even though it is painful and leaves him exhausted, his mind is still crystal clear. Cigarette woman smirks comes closer. “You want a puff?”

Murphy stares at her, and she laughs. “What? You’ve never smoked before? Here, let me teach you.” She pulls the gag out of his mouth and holds the cigarette to his lips. Her hand is big for a woman; the nails are cracked and dirty, there are tattoos on her knuckles: scales, a cross, a snake.

Murphy takes the delicate tip instinctively between his lips. The woman chuckles. “Inhale.” He shouldn’t, it’s a trick, but curious, he does as he’s told. The tip glows brightly, burning the wrinkled paper of the cigarette. Smoke itches down his throat, and he tries to cough it up, but the woman clamps her unusually big, sweaty hand over his mouth and nose. The rest of Eligius’ thugs laugh while Murphy trashes on the floor, choking on the smoke. When the woman lets go of his face, he’s panting.

She gags him again, pushing the gag back into his mouth while he coughs and splutters. “Oh, don’t be a baby.”

She brings the tip of the glowing cigarette to his face, while the other Eligius’ people look on and laugh. Murphy looks away, gritting his teeth when the burning cigarette makes contact with his cheekbone.

The smell of burnt skin mixes with the stench of the room, but his eyes have fallen on a small silver box peeking out of the woman’s pocket.

He manages to swipe it into his palm when the door opens.

“McCreary says to bring him,” grumbles the newcomer and Cigarette Woman pouts as she sticks the gag back into his mouth.

“A pity. I didn’t even get to play with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue what this is or where it came from.


End file.
